Quote from makloda:
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These are the 10 year rolling returns of the SP500 total return index (including dividends, not inflation adjusted).
So looks like we are going lower until the 10 year return goes negative for a while, scares everyone out of stocks, and produces a new "Death of Equities" magazine cover. S&P 1000 anyone?
The strange thing is that 1998-2008 has been THE greatest trading/speculating decade I can imagine. You had an insane bubble where many made 10k into $1 mill+ in 2-3 years, the shorting/put-buying opportunity of a lifetime, a great deep value buying opportunity in 2003, a 10 year real estate boom, a commodity boom, and now in the last 18 months yet another amazing opportunity with short financials and real estate stocks with loads of intraday volatility too and on four separate occasions you had great buying opportunities during market panics.
Now I'm not saying most, few, or even any trader could have played all of those. I missed quite a few, that's for sure. But anyone with a trading bone in their body could have played at least 1 or 2. If someone points to the 1998-08 period as a "lost decade", I would have to counter that IMO it had more trading opportunities than anyone could handle.
What would scare me is a 10 year period where nothing at all happens, the markets just dry up and there is no volatility intraday OR over the longer-term. But I'm not sure that has ever happened or ever will. It really does seem that the old trading saw is correct - "there's always a bull market somewhere".
This is GREAT news for traders, as opposed to buy & hold investors. When stocks get creamed e.g. 1929-32, or 2000-2002, there is huge volatility intraday, and great shorting opportunities longer-term. When stocks have a 3-4 year major rebound, even in the context of a stagnant decade (e.g. 1930s, 1970s, 2000s), you can make a fortune with buy & hold or momentum investing/trading. When inflation creams both stocks and bonds, commodities are on fire. Real estate will be booming or busting most of the time. There's always a bull market somewhere. And even if there was no bull market, there's at least a crazy action volatile bear market.

